Seth Baetzold (30, MSF bio here) loves swimming 58 km along the Red River of the North from the state of North Dakota to Minnesota in the annual Extreme North Dakota Watersports Endurance Test (END-WET) race:

• 2024: he won in 9 hours 14 minutes, escorted by Brian Huschle
• 2023: he finished in 9 hours 51 minutes, second to Michael Rice
• 2022: he finished in 8 hours 34 minutes, third to Jamie Proffitt and Karen Zemlin
• 2021: he finished in 13 hours 33 minutes, third to Sarah Thomas and Marian Cardwell
• 2019: he finished in 10 hours 21 minutes, second to Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist

One of the longest competitive open water swims in the Americas, the 58 km END-WET river swim that runs along the Red River from the state of North Dakota to Minnesota.

2025 Starting List

1. Seth Baetzold (30, MSF bio here) escorted by Brian Huschle
2. W. Casey McGrath (53) escorted by Nick Zdon
3. Gerald George (66, MSF bio here, IISA bio here) escorted by Jimmie Kennedy
4. John Zemaitis (41, MSF bio here, IISA bio here) escorted by Steve Gruenwald
5. Joe Zemaitis (45, MSF bio here, IISA bio here) escorted by Nick Tamble
6. Jerelyn Watanabe (56) and Terri Dietz (54, MSF bio here), duo relay
7. Katie Blair (46, MSF bio here) escorted by Kat Puhl
8. Chris Allshouse (55, MSF bio here) escorted by Julia Allshouse
9. Edward Lomicka (56, MSF bio here) escorted by Ivan Pancic
10. Laina Green (30) escorted by Michael Box
11. Stephen Rouch (44, MSF bio here, IISA bio here) escorted by Lindsey Danis

Historic END-WET Male & Female Winners

• 2012 (43.5 km): Darren Miller 9 hours 11 minutes, Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist 9 hours 15 minutes
• 2013 (43.5 km): Karen Zemlin 6 hours 58 minutes, Bob Naylor 7 hours 22 minutes
• 2014 (58 km): Kevin Kopplin 8 hours 38 minutes, Kathleen Wilson 9 hours 9 minutes
• 2015 (58 km): Sarah Thomas 9 hours 43 minutes, William Leonard 9 hours 53 minutes
• 2016 (58 km): Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist 10 hours 44 minutes, Jeff Utsch 11 hours 13 minutes
• 2017 (58 km): Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist 10 hours 33 minutes, Arlo Lorenz 13 hours 48 minutes
• 2018 (58 km): Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist 9 hours 40 minutes, Stephen Rouch 10 hours 35 minutes
• 2019 (58 km): Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist 9 hours 21 minutes, Seth Baetzold 10 hours 21 minutes
• 2020: no race held
• 2021 (58 km): Sarah Thomas 13 hours 4 minutes, Seth Baetzold 13 hours 10 minutes
• 2022 (58 km): Jamie Proffitt 8 hours 32 minutes, Karen Zemlin 8 hours 33 minutes (shown above)
• 2023 (58 km): Michael Rice 9 hours 25 minutes, Linda Simons 10 hours 38 minutes
• 2024 (58): Seth Baetzold 9 hours 14 minutes, Cheryl Reinke 9 hours 45 minutes

The details of the 2025 END-WET are here.

Katie Blair is the 2025 END-WET Guest Swimmer. She explained her background, “I grew up in Mannheim, Germany, where I started swimming competitively at the age of 11 – so a bit of a late start. Around the age of 15, I discovered triathlon and became obsessed with the idea of wanting to compete in the Ironman Hawaii. Many thousands of hours of training later, I was able to make that dream come true, finishing the Ironman Hawaii in 2001 and 2002. A perk along the way was making International Triathlon Union – Long Distance World Champion (18-24) in Frederica, Denmark in 2001.

Focusing on my son Ashton, born in 2004, and pursuing a college education, I considered myself retired from the demands of endurance sports. Little did I know that a bathroom flyer at Colorado State University would get me started on a whole second endurance sports career. Said flyer promoted the Horsetooth Reservoir 10K swim and had me curious if I still ‘had it’. A cool mountain 10K swim later, I was suddenly training with a small group of crazies that dreamt of the English Channel.

16 years later, I have an eclectic collection of adventurous swims under my belt – some successful and some not. I completed the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming with my 2012 English Channel swim. Succeeded in the Kaiwi Channel in 2013, while failing after 8 hours in the too-cold-for-Katie North Channel in Ireland. I swam a triple-width crossing of Lake Constance in 2014, Lake Memphremagog and Tampa Bay in 2015, Lake Erie in 2019, and from St. Lucia to Martinique in 2020. In 2022, I failed at the lofty goal of trying to circumnavigate St. Lucia.

Following the failure, I was considering myself retired again – and even moved to Florida. However, I find myself drawn to complete the Swim Around Key West at least once a year and am living by the warm Atlantic waters of central Florida, where I train steadily. My son Ashton, now 20, is an aspiring mechanical engineer studying at Purdue. Meanwhile, I was able to complete my PhD in Psychology with an emphasis in Performance Psychology in 2023 and am currently working for the United States Space Force. I am excited to finally make it to END-WET and am starting to think that retirement is probably not my thing.“

© 2025 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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